California is also one of the largest states; it's certainly the LONGEST, just under 1,000 miles from North to South. Or from South to North, for that matter.
So many people NOT on the West Coast think California is all like S.F., or like L.A., and are often surprised to find out we have HUGE uninhabited areas, plus huge agricultural areas, in addition to major metropolitan areas. We gots us some mountains, some deserts, some valleys, whole bunches of rivers, a couple HUGE delta areas, marshes, sloughs, cricks,
whole swaths of the state with trees green year round, other sections glorious with wildflowers for a few short months and then all this horrible brown nothing the rest of the time.
Gorgeous coast line (also about a thousand miles long - go figure!) with everything from wide, flat beaches to rocky cliffs and caves and all that picturesque stuff.
And, yes, population centers spewing out pollutants which cannot effectively dissipate, but coalesce into smog and "inversion layers" in geographic locations challenged with micro-climates.
*sigh*